Tuesday, December 8, 2009

TED Talk Tuesday: A.J. Jacobs' year of living biblically

All you Bible believers, pleeease pick and choose. There is some good stuff in there.

I particularly liked Jacobs' experience with offering prayers of thanks. PZ Myers posted a 
rather cynical view of Thanksgiving recently, where he said essentially, don't bother 
offering thanks, because there's nothing out there that cares if you're grateful or not. 
Well, no, there isn't, but it makes you feel better to think about what's going right in 
your life.

Anyway, enjoy the video.





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15 comments:

  1. Is it possible that if someone thinks that obeying every rule in the Bible is what makes them a good person and justified in the eyes of God that they are perhaps mistaken or does not fully understand the concept of grace?

    Allow me to take a moment and try and summarize the concept of grace.

    The purpose of the law (that is the approximately 700 rules found in the first five books of the Bible Genesis-Deut which AJ attempted to follow for a year) is essentially found in Romans 3:19-20: “Obviously, the law applies to those to whom it was given, for its purpose is to keep people from having excuses, and to show that the entire world is guilty before God. For no one can ever be made right with God by doing what the law commands. The law simply shows us how sinful we are.” AJ said it himself in this video, “I tried to follow the Bible and failed miserably because you can’t.” If you think that it is necessary and to earn your way into God’s favor by attempting to follow all the rules of the Bible you will fail. Everyone fails. One does not even have to be a believer in the Bible to know that they are not perfect. For some reason we can’t even live up to our own perceived sense of morality.

    The concept of grace is also essentially found later on in Romans chapter 3. Beginning in verse 21 Paul says “But now God has shown us a way to be made right with him without keeping the requirements of the law, as was promised in the writings of Moses and the prophets long ago. We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are.” Later on in the chapter he continues by saying “Can we boast, then, that we have done anything to be accepted by God? No, because our acquittal is not based on obeying the law. It is based on faith. So we are made right with God through faith and not by obeying the law.”

    AJ joked about some of the rules that seemed a bit off the wall to us today. For example he talked about not sitting in a seat that a woman who is menstruating sat in and that his wife took offense to the idea. Obviously this rule doesn’t make sense to us today, but does that mean that it didn’t have relevance then? Not by any means. Off the top of my head I can think of at least one reason for the rule…how about preventing the spread of disease! Maybe that particular rule’s intent was to control the spread of disease. Tell me, if a man who had blood soaked clothes because of some bodily trauma he had received sat on a park bench in his blood soaked clothes would you go sit in the same spot before it had been properly sanitized? I highly doubt it. We don’t worry about the menstrual rule today because of improvements in general sanitary practices. Even today some people take, what others might consider extreme or archaic, precautions in keeping themselves and their kids free of potential diseases resulting in the transfer of bodily fluids. In hospitals anything containing bodily fluids is considered a biohazard. Is that arcane? It’s easy to write something off as ludicrous but I bet if we did a little research there would be a perfectly logical explanation for a rule that to us sounds so archaic.

    So, I don’t think that Christians are so much picking and choosing which rules to follow as they are living under grace which comes through faith in Jesus Christ.

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  2. I'm sorry, do you really think women were just bleeding all over the place? Sure, they didn't have tampons, but I can't imagine that they didn't have some sort of receptacle in place to catch their menstrual flow. And the law didn't just say, Don't sit where a menstruating woman sat. It said, Don't touch a menstruating woman, because she is unclean. You can't claim that was about sanitation. These were people who wiped their butts with their bare hands. This law was about contempt of women and women's bodies. (Awesome historical novel on this very topic: The Red Tent by Anita Diamant)

    And, Patrik, I'm not buying the grace thing. The way you're selling it makes it sound like, "Just believe, and then nothing else matters." I thought Mike's Hitler vs. Ghandi analogy on the Sin, Saved, Truth thread illustrated the illogic of this perfectly. And I don't know how you can keep claiming that there has to be some absolute moral standard that we're trying to measure against. Even God seems to give different rules to different people in different circumstances. Or is God not unchanging like the Bible says he is?

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  3. All this unclean business comes from Leviticus chapter 15. Interestingly enough, the same rules apply to men who have bodily discharges. All the rules about how to interact with women also apply to men. You can't sit on a seat where a man sat or touch a man who is having a bodily discharge. If it is contempt for women because of their natural cycle then contempt also exists for men because of the discharge of semen, even in sexual intercourse. However, I don't think it is about conempt because we are told to be fruitful and multiply and both processes are required for that.

    One of the beautiful things about grace is it is undeserved. Does it make sense? Not really. Mike's example raises issues because it doesn't seem fair to us and I understand that. But just because we don't understand it or that it might not seem fair to us doesn't invalidate it.

    I am selling grace because Paul goes through great lengths to sell it. It is not a flavor of Christianity I have chosen because it sounds easy but because that is what the Bible teaches. I list the Biblical references each time I discuss it so you know I'm not making things up.

    Absolute moral standard? Your brother said in a previous post that he was not perfect. Since he is an atheist, to what standard is he measuring himself? You said murder was wrong. Is that a statement of your opinion or a universal truth? It might not be fair to the victim because we are robbing them of their equal opportunity to life but is it really truly wrong?

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  4. The only idea close to an absolute truth in morality is "do to others as you would have them do to yourself" (the Golden Rule). It's not just a nice statement from the Bible. It seems to be an almost universal idea throughout human culture.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_rule

    Using that as a standard, I am not perfect. Sometimes I lose my temper and act in a way that I would not want to be treated (though somewhat rarely). I don't want to put words in Mike's mouth, but I would assume that he meant something along those lines.

    My issue with the Bible is what it teaches:

    Who should we kill?
    - Homosexuals (Lev 20:13, Rom 1:26-32)
    - Adulterers (Lev 20:10, Deut 22:22)
    - Disobedient children (Deut 21:20-21, Lev 20:9, Exod 21:15)
    - Women who are not virgins on their wedding night (Deut 22:13-21)
    - All non-Christians (Luke 19:27)
    - Those accused of wickedness by at least two people (Deut 17:2-7)
    - Anyone who works on the Sabbath (Exod 35:2-3, Nu 15:32-36)

    Women:
    - It is shameful for a woman to speak in church (1 Cor 14:34-35)
    - A woman's statement can only be accepted if her husband approves it (Num 30:8)
    - A woman must not teach or hold authority over a man (1 Tim 2:12)
    - Lot saves the messengers from the men of Sodom by offering up his virgin daughters to "do to them as you please" (Gen 19:8)
    - "Kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourself every girl who has never slept with a man" (Moses - Numb 31:17-8)

    Slavery:
    - God supports slavery (Lev 25:44-46, Exod 21:2-8, Eph 6:5, Col 3:22)
    - Instructions on how to sell your daughter as a slave (Exod 21:7-8)
    - When to give your slaves "severe" or "light" beatings (Luke 12:42-48)
    - OK to beat slaves only if they don't die within two days (Exod 21:20-21)
    - How to mark your slave: drive an awl through its ear (Deut 15:17)

    Marriage:
    - it's best if all people remain unmarried. Marriage is a lesser-of-two-evils compromise for Christians too weak to resist their sexual urges, "for it is better to marry than to burn." (Paul - 1 Cor 7:1-2, 8-9, 25-26, 38)
    - The rapist of an unwed woman must buy her and make her his wife (Deut 22:28-29)

    Justice:
    - If a man suspects his wife of cheating he can serve her a cursed drink; if she becomes deformed, then that proves her guilt (Num 5:12-31)
    - 42 children killed by bears for calling a prophet "baldy" (2 Kins 2:23-24)
    - OK to beat your children with a rod - it won't kill them (Prov 23:13-14)

    Christ as the role model...
    - Christ tells us we ust "hate" our entire fmily, and even our own life, if we want to be one of His disciples (Luke 14:26)
    - Those who abandon their families will be rewarded (Matt 19:29)
    - "For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother... And a man's foes shall be they of his own household." (Christ - Matt 10:35-36)
    - "I came not to send peace, but a sword" (Christ - Matt 10:34)
    - If you don't have a sword, sell your clothes to buy one (Luke 22:36)
    - Curses a fig tree for not bearing fruit on the off-season (Mark 11:12-14, 20-21)
    - Didn't want to help a girl because she was a "dog" gentile (Matt 15:22-28)

    Of course there are good passages in the Bible, but the good is tainted by the bad that surrounds it.

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  5. I've heard some people say "Well you're only picking and choosing the bad stuff that's in the Bible. There's good things too." Some people use the Bible as their moral guide but my question is: What moral standard guides them that says "Ok this part of the Bible is bad. We shouldn't follow this rule anymore." or "Oh I like this rule. I think this is a good rule to follow."? Since we already seem to know what's good and bad in the Bible why not throw out the Bible all together and follow what feels right to you?

    Why are there people who didn't grow up studying the Bible who are still considered good people? Or where did morality come from before people started writing books and forming a religion around it?

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  6. Very amusing video!

    Also, you've got some interesting commentary here! You make a very valid point about menstruation (in response to Patrick), plus both Ray and John make excellent points!

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  7. Ray, I’m not going to pretend that I have or know all the answers, but I am going to take a stab at addressing some of the issues you have presented. I do believe, however, that should you be willing you could consult with a more educated person in the theological realm who knows more about the history of the Jewish people and what was and was not the norm in the days of Moses and the early church that you can find more answers. To save space I cut out the passages I didn’t write anything about.

    Who should we kill?
    - Homosexuals (Lev 20:13, Rom 1:26-32) It is true that the levitical law considered homosexuality worthy of capital punishment. I find it interesting that you didn’t point out or indicate having a problem with any of the other sexual acts that are referenced in Leviticus chapter 20.
    - Adulterers (Lev 20:10, Deut 22:22) Back in the day it was considered a crime worthy of capital punishment. Today it is not. I wonder, though, whether the percentages of cases of adultery would change if this rule were still in affect today. Maybe not even capital punishment but something a little more strict than the current laws. In Arizona it is a misdemeanor, but only if the offended party presses charges. But what if it was a felony? Would the percentage of cheating drop?
    - All non-Christians (Luke 19:27) Do you think this was an order by Jesus to commit Christian Jihad or something? It was a parable about using the gifts that God has given us. Ultimately when the king returns (Jesus) we will be held accountable with what have done with our lives.
    - Those accused of wickedness by at least two people (Deut 17:2-7) Are you offended by the capital punishment or the two witnesses? The more witnesses there are to a crime the better, right? Obviously this isn’t always the case as sometimes there aren’t witnesses or maybe only one.
    - Anyone who works on the Sabbath (Exod 35:2-3, Nu 15:32-36)
    One thing you have to remember is that God’s law expected perfection. Obviously we are not and hence Jesus coming to redeem us. When it comes to applying the law read John 8: 1-11

    Women:
    - It is shameful for a woman to speak in church (1 Cor 14:34-35)
    - A woman's statement can only be accepted if her husband approves it (Num 30:8)
    - A woman must not teach or hold authority over a man (1 Tim 2:12) The role of women was different in the early church and Paul’s letters were written sometimes to address specific issues. The world norm (not just in the jewish society) for women was certainly different in respect to authority and education. This could have been part of the problem, not that Paul was totally against women and their role in the church but that they had never been properly educated. In fact, in other books in the NT Paul praises the work of women (whom he actually names. For instance, Pricilla is mentioned a few times) and their roles in the church.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Slavery:

    Read the wikipedia entry on Biblical slavery. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bible_and_slavery It is interesting that the slavery of antiquity was not the same as it is usually thought of by us today with the African slave trade. Did God condone slavery or just establish laws on how His chosen people were to interact with an established world norm?

    Marriage:
    - it's best if all people remain unmarried. Marriage is a lesser-of-two-evils compromise for Christians too weak to resist their sexual urges, "for it is better to marry than to burn." (Paul - 1 Cor 7:1-2, 8-9, 25-26, 38) Paul considered it our primary life goal to forward the kingdom of Christ. He knew that by getting married that our focus would shift from that of working for Christ to that of our families. It was not an evil because from the very beginning God established marriage. (Gen 2:24)

    Justice:
    - OK to beat your children with a rod - it won't kill them (Prov 23:13-14) You ever watch the Blue Collar Comedy with Bill Engvall? He jokes about having to go out and choose his own willow switch for his father to spank him with. But then, in this PC world it’s now a fopah to spank your children so I’m not surprised at there being an objection to this.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Christ as the role model...
    - Christ tells us we must "hate" our entire fmily, and even our own life, if we want to be one of His disciples (Luke 14:26) It is true that our relationship with Jesus is the number one priority in our lives. If everyone in the household shares their belief in Jesus as the Messiah then there will be no division. However, if members of the family do not believe and instead give you an ultimatum of choosing them or Jesus then the believer may be put in a position by the family to have to choose what is more important. Jesus does not diminish the importance of the family (as this is addressed elsewhere) but he is saying that belief in him will cause division because not everyone will believe.
    - Those who abandon their families will be rewarded (Matt 19:29) Sometimes the family makes you decide between Jesus or them. My Pastor has told the story of how his family threatened to cut their relationship off with him when he told them he wanted to go into ministry. You seem to have a problem with Jesus’ teachings but do you also have a problem with a family that makes such threats? Though you may not understand, Jesus is just teaching that a person’s relationship with Him is our number one priority and if your family rejects you as a result then that is most unfortunate and you will be rewarded for your grief.
    - "For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother... And a man's foes shall be they of his own household." (Christ - Matt 10:35-36) see previous
    - "I came not to send peace, but a sword" (Christ - Matt 10:34) I presume you take this to mean that Jesus was calling for war. Tell me, where in the Gospels does any of His actions indicate this? You can apply this to the above situations. The message of the cross was divisive. The nation of Israel was divided between those who accepted Jesus as the Messiah and those who rejected Him as the Messiah. He was not suggesting war because none of His actions indicated this.
    - If you don't have a sword, sell your clothes to buy one (Luke 22:36) It is funny how sometimes a single passage is taken WAY out of context. Did you read any of the passages following this one? Jesus knew the prophesies about Him being considered a rebel. He was fulfilling prophesy. If this passage was so troubling try thinking about Jesus’ ministry as a whole. As I said before where in His life did He ever actually literally put the sword to use? Nowhere. In fact, when He was being arrested in the garden Peter drew his sword and struck off the ear of one of those present to arrest Him. What was Jesus’ response? Was it, “CHARGE! KILL THEM ALL!”? Nope. Instead, he rebuked Peter and healed the ear of the man.
    - Curses a fig tree for not bearing fruit on the off-season (Mark 11:12-14, 20-21) Jesus was using the tree as an opportunity to teach His disciples about faith. I’m sorry you are offended by the killing of a tree. I guess Jesus valued the life of people over that of trees. Instead of worrying about a tree maybe the focus should be the same as that of the disciples….awe that Jesus had power over creation. Do you also take offense of when Jesus rebuked the wind or the waves?

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  10. - Didn't want to help a girl because she was a "dog" gentile (Matt 15:22-28) It was a national stigma at the time for Jewish people not to associate with Samaritans and gentiles. The Jews often referred to non jewish people as dogs. Jesus knew this. Does this passage suggest that Jesus consider the gentiles to be dogs? Or was He testing the faith off the woman by playing upon the stigma? If Jesus truly thought she was a dog then why did He heal her? Why not take the advise of His disciples and just walk away and ignore her? Go read the story of the Samaritan at the well. The same sort of scenario applies there. The Samaritan was amazed that a Jew was asking her for water. Though the Israelites thought the Messiah was coming to save them Jesus came to save all of mankind and to break down the national stigmas that existed.

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  11. There's a lot there, but I only want to reply to one of your comments:

    "Jesus was using the tree as an opportunity to teach His disciples about faith. I’m sorry you are offended by the killing of a tree. I guess Jesus valued the life of people over that of trees. Instead of worrying about a tree maybe the focus should be the same as that of the disciples….awe that Jesus had power over creation. Do you also take offense of when Jesus rebuked the wind or the waves? "

    I wasn't offended by Jesus killing a tree. I just thought it was stupid. Why didn't he just magically make the tree create fruit? The rest of the parable is equally laughable, and leads me to question whether or not he was eating special mushrooms.

    "That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith. Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them."

    Do you believe you could move a mountain into the sea if you believed it enough?

    ReplyDelete
  12. There's a lot there, but I only want to reply to one of your comments:

    "Jesus was using the tree as an opportunity to teach His disciples about faith. I’m sorry you are offended by the killing of a tree. I guess Jesus valued the life of people over that of trees. Instead of worrying about a tree maybe the focus should be the same as that of the disciples….awe that Jesus had power over creation. Do you also take offense of when Jesus rebuked the wind or the waves? "

    I wasn't offended by Jesus killing a tree. I just thought it was stupid. Why didn't he just magically make the tree create fruit? The rest of the parable is equally laughable, and leads me to question whether or not he was eating special mushrooms.

    "That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith. Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them."

    Do you believe you could move a mountain into the sea if you believed it enough?

    ReplyDelete
  13. Slavery:

    Read the wikipedia entry on Biblical slavery. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bible_and_slavery It is interesting that the slavery of antiquity was not the same as it is usually thought of by us today with the African slave trade. Did God condone slavery or just establish laws on how His chosen people were to interact with an established world norm?

    Marriage:
    - it's best if all people remain unmarried. Marriage is a lesser-of-two-evils compromise for Christians too weak to resist their sexual urges, "for it is better to marry than to burn." (Paul - 1 Cor 7:1-2, 8-9, 25-26, 38) Paul considered it our primary life goal to forward the kingdom of Christ. He knew that by getting married that our focus would shift from that of working for Christ to that of our families. It was not an evil because from the very beginning God established marriage. (Gen 2:24)

    Justice:
    - OK to beat your children with a rod - it won't kill them (Prov 23:13-14) You ever watch the Blue Collar Comedy with Bill Engvall? He jokes about having to go out and choose his own willow switch for his father to spank him with. But then, in this PC world it’s now a fopah to spank your children so I’m not surprised at there being an objection to this.

    ReplyDelete
  14. I'm sorry, do you really think women were just bleeding all over the place? Sure, they didn't have tampons, but I can't imagine that they didn't have some sort of receptacle in place to catch their menstrual flow. And the law didn't just say, Don't sit where a menstruating woman sat. It said, Don't touch a menstruating woman, because she is unclean. You can't claim that was about sanitation. These were people who wiped their butts with their bare hands. This law was about contempt of women and women's bodies. (Awesome historical novel on this very topic: The Red Tent by Anita Diamant)

    And, Patrik, I'm not buying the grace thing. The way you're selling it makes it sound like, "Just believe, and then nothing else matters." I thought Mike's Hitler vs. Ghandi analogy on the Sin, Saved, Truth thread illustrated the illogic of this perfectly. And I don't know how you can keep claiming that there has to be some absolute moral standard that we're trying to measure against. Even God seems to give different rules to different people in different circumstances. Or is God not unchanging like the Bible says he is?

    ReplyDelete
  15. Is it possible that if someone thinks that obeying every rule in the Bible is what makes them a good person and justified in the eyes of God that they are perhaps mistaken or does not fully understand the concept of grace?

    Allow me to take a moment and try and summarize the concept of grace.

    The purpose of the law (that is the approximately 700 rules found in the first five books of the Bible Genesis-Deut which AJ attempted to follow for a year) is essentially found in Romans 3:19-20: “Obviously, the law applies to those to whom it was given, for its purpose is to keep people from having excuses, and to show that the entire world is guilty before God. For no one can ever be made right with God by doing what the law commands. The law simply shows us how sinful we are.” AJ said it himself in this video, “I tried to follow the Bible and failed miserably because you can’t.” If you think that it is necessary and to earn your way into God’s favor by attempting to follow all the rules of the Bible you will fail. Everyone fails. One does not even have to be a believer in the Bible to know that they are not perfect. For some reason we can’t even live up to our own perceived sense of morality.

    The concept of grace is also essentially found later on in Romans chapter 3. Beginning in verse 21 Paul says “But now God has shown us a way to be made right with him without keeping the requirements of the law, as was promised in the writings of Moses and the prophets long ago. We are made right with God by placing our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is true for everyone who believes, no matter who we are.” Later on in the chapter he continues by saying “Can we boast, then, that we have done anything to be accepted by God? No, because our acquittal is not based on obeying the law. It is based on faith. So we are made right with God through faith and not by obeying the law.”

    AJ joked about some of the rules that seemed a bit off the wall to us today. For example he talked about not sitting in a seat that a woman who is menstruating sat in and that his wife took offense to the idea. Obviously this rule doesn’t make sense to us today, but does that mean that it didn’t have relevance then? Not by any means. Off the top of my head I can think of at least one reason for the rule…how about preventing the spread of disease! Maybe that particular rule’s intent was to control the spread of disease. Tell me, if a man who had blood soaked clothes because of some bodily trauma he had received sat on a park bench in his blood soaked clothes would you go sit in the same spot before it had been properly sanitized? I highly doubt it. We don’t worry about the menstrual rule today because of improvements in general sanitary practices. Even today some people take, what others might consider extreme or archaic, precautions in keeping themselves and their kids free of potential diseases resulting in the transfer of bodily fluids. In hospitals anything containing bodily fluids is considered a biohazard. Is that arcane? It’s easy to write something off as ludicrous but I bet if we did a little research there would be a perfectly logical explanation for a rule that to us sounds so archaic.

    So, I don’t think that Christians are so much picking and choosing which rules to follow as they are living under grace which comes through faith in Jesus Christ.

    ReplyDelete

Religion, skepticism, and carving out a spiritual life post-Mormonism